ABSTRACT
This study discusses three of the first films produced by Greek companies during the 1930s as cases where music was used in an effort to take advantage of the new technology and meet the demand of local audiences for talking films in their native language. I argue that the first Greek sound films were by and large based on, and inspired by, the commercial hits of the music theater, specifically the Athenian operetta, a very popular theater genre developed during the first decades of the twentieth century. However, due to their serious technical limitations, the first Greek sound films could not compete with international film production.
